Overview of relation between valence, danceability and mode in TOP 2000 {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}

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In this scatter plot you can see the relation between valence, danceability and mode in the TOP2000.

Chromagrams: How pitch makes Bohemian Rhapsody number 1 {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}

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What is a chromagram?

Explain what a chromagram is

Bohemian Rhapsody in the TOP2000 Let’s first take a look at Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. This is definitely an interesting song in the TOP2000 because of its position in the list. From the first year onwards it has been on number 1 for almost all years. In 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2020 the song was beaten by either Avond, Hotel California, Imagine or Roller Coaster, however Bohemian Rhapsody still secured a runner up position.

The chromagram of Bohemian Rhapsody

What makes the song so great? If we look at pitch in the form of the chromagram we can perhaps see why. The song is in three different keys. It starts in the key of Bb in the verse, which becomes very clear by the yellow stripes in the chromagram. Another important moment in the song is the so-called ‘opera’-part. This happens around 3 minutes, (or 180 seconds) and is visible in the chromagram if you look at the greener area in the key of A. The greener area in A can be explained because this part is starting in A-major and the part modulates back and forth to this key. The song ends in the key of Eb, hence the yellow area around 330s. In general, you could say this song is all over the place pitch-wise because it is changing key often (I have only outlined the big changes, a lot more is happening!).

The rising star of the last decade: Fix You Queen is not the only band in the TOP2000 who has a big impact on the list. Coldplay has turned out to also be a favourite over the past few years. Their song Fix You ended on the 5th place in the edition of 2022. The chromagram is evident with separately showing the chords that are being played at the start. The song begins with an organ that plays Eb Gm Cm7 Gb, as is also shown in the chromagram. From around 150 seconds these individually played chords fade away and make way for other patterns with a high magnitude at Eb, the key of the song.

Positions of Bohemian Rhapsody: 1999: no. 1, 2009: no. 1, 2019: no. 1, 2022: no. 1

Positions of Ne Me Quitte Pas: 1999: no. 66, 2009: no. 94, 2019: no. 415, 2022: no. 244

Positions of Fix You: 1999: -, 2009: no. 1494, 2019: no. 8, 2022: no. 5

Positions of Zing - Vecht - Huil - Bid - Lach - Werk en Bewonder: 1999: no. 297, 2009: no. 7, 2019: no. 167, 2022: no. 319

Cepstrograms: Who Wants to Live Forever might be the saddest song in the TOP2000 {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}

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What is a cepstrogram?

Explain what a chromagram is

Bohemian Rhapsody in the TOP2000 Let’s first take a look at Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. This is definitely an interesting song in the TOP2000 because of its position in the list. From the first year onwards it has been on number 1 for almost all years. In 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2020 the song was beaten by either Avond, Hotel California, Imagine or Roller Coaster, however Bohemian Rhapsody still secured a runner up position.

The chromagram of Bohemian Rhapsody What makes the song so great? If we look at pitch in the form of the chromagram we can perhaps see why. The song is in three different keys. It starts in the key of Bb in the verse, which becomes very clear by the yellow stripes in the chromagram. Another important moment in the song is the so-called ‘opera’-part. This happens around 3 minutes, (or 180 seconds) and is visible in the chromagram if you look at the greener area in the key of A. The greener area in A can be explained because this part is starting in A-major and the part modulates back and forth to this key. The song ends in the key of Eb, hence the yellow area around 330s. In general, you could say this song is all over the place pitch-wise because it is changing key often (I have only outlined the big changes, a lot more is happening!).

The rising star of the last decade: Fix You Queen is not the only band in the TOP2000 who has a big impact on the list. Coldplay has turned out to also be a favourite over the past few years. Their song Fix You ended on the 5th place in the edition of 2022. The chromagram is evident with separately showing the chords that are being played at the start. The song begins with an organ that plays Eb Gm Cm7 Gb, as is also shown in the chromagram. From around 150 seconds these individually played chords fade away and make way for other patterns with a high magnitude at Eb, the key of the song.

Positions of Noodgeval: 1999:-, 2009: -, 2019: -, 2022: no. 55

Positions of Summertime: 1999: no. 562, 2009: no. 1293, 2019: -, 2022: -

Positions of Heart-Shaped Box: 1999: -, 2009: -, 2019: no. 1019, 2022: no. 797

Positions of Belle Hélène: 1999: -, 2009: no. 1165, 2019: no. 928, 2022: no. 516

Self-similarity Matrices: Who Wants to Live Forever might be the saddest song in the TOP2000 {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}

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Another interesting song by Queen in the TOP2000 is Who Wants to Live Forever. This song turned out to be an outlier in the scatter plot by having a low valence score and a low danceability score. That makes the song perhaps the saddest in the TOP2000. From the chromagram, cepstrogram and the two self-similarity matrices it becomes more clear how the song is built. In the chromagram you can see that there is a lot of E, which can be explained by the key of the song. The E-minor scale consists of E F# G A B C D, therefore it is no surprise that the chromagram shows a higher magnitude for these tones. The cepstrogram gives more information about the timbre of this song. There is not too much variety in timbre, c02 is relatively yellow through almost the entire song, however c01 till c06 show some magnitude. The self-similarity matrices explain the structure of the song. In both matrices there are some clear distinctions visible between parts of the song. For example around 85 seconds, the moment when the chorus starts, there is a sharp change in both matrices.

Positions of Who Wants To Live Forever: 1999: no. 30, 2009: no. 77, 2019: no. 74, 2022: no. 101

Positions of Hallelujah: 1999: -, 2009: no. 51, 2019: no. 183, 2022: no. 335

Keygrams: Hey Jude {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}

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The keygram is shown for Hey Jude by the Beatles. According to the keygram the key of the song changes a few times. it looks like the song starts with a short intro in A-minor and then moves to the key of F-major. After this there are two quick changes, the first of which is to Bb-minor or Bb-major. The keygram shows the same magnitude for these keys but it would make more sense that it’s Bb-major because this key is closer related to the previous keys. After this the key goes back to F-major and then to the dominant of F, the C-major. The remaining part of the song the key changes between these two keys, the F-major and the C-major. Even though most of the key changes aren’t that surprising, the fact that there are several changes makes it interesting to listen to.

Positions of Hey Jude: 1999: no. 11, 2009: no. 23, 2019: no. 72, 2022: no. 130

Positions of Phantom Of The Opera: 1999: -, 2009: -, 2019: no. 1322, 2022: no. 68

Positions of Invisible Touch: 1999: -, 2009: no. 1738, 2019: no. 1982, 2022: no. 130

Positions of I Want It That Way: 1999: -, 2009: no. 1569, 2019: no. 1014, 2022: no. 910

Tempograms: Rainbow in the Sky and Killing in the Name {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}

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What is a tempogram?

A tempogram shows the BPM of a song over time. In this case the yellow lines show the BPM at a certain point in the song. Sometimes there is more than one yellow line visible, these ‘extra’ lines are tempo octaves.

The tempogram of Rainbow in the Sky

This is a tempogram of Rainbow in the Sky by DJ Paul Elstak. The tempogram shows a straight line throughtout the entire song around 360 BPM. At around 10 seconds and 75 seconds there are other yellow dots visible for 180 BPM, these are the tempo octaves. At 120 and 150 seconds there are also ‘extra’ short yellow lines in the tempogram. I personally don’t have a good explanation for these lines that appear around 210 BPM. Rainbow in the Sky is an electronic track in the genre of happy hardcore. This explains the straight line in the tempogram, the electronically created beats happen in a very steady pace.

Rainbow in the Sky in the TOP2000

Rainbow in the Sky was released in 1995 but only entered the TOP2000 in 2015 at no. 765. Since, the song has been gaining a few places each year. Last edition, in 2022, the song ended up at the highest position yet, no. 366.

The tempogram of Killing in the Name

The tempogram of Killing in the Name by the band Rage Against the Machine looks very different compared to Rainbow in the Sky’s tempogram. In this tempogram there is no straight yellow line. This means a few things. Firstly, Killing in the Name isn’t an electronic track like Rainbow in the Sky. This means that the drummer needs to keep the exact same pace for some time, which can be hard. That makes the tempo in Killing in the Name automatically more dynamic and the yellow lines not as straight. A second reason for the bumpy lines could be the noise in the song. Everything in the song comes across as loud, the singing (or one could say almost screaming) and the lead guitar that has several solos for example. These parts don’t have a very clear on beat tempo which might interfere with the tempo of the drums. The final reason for why there isn’t a straight line, are the tempo changes. These changes are quite obvious when you listen to the song. A clear example of one of these changes is at 2 min. 25 (145 seconds). The song switches here from the chorus to the second verse. The chorus has strong vocals and a heavy guitar with a slightly faster beat than the verse which has the characteristic guitar riff with softer vocals.

Killing in the Name in the TOP2000

Just like Rainbow in the Sky, Killing in the Name was released (in 1992) many years before its introduction to the TOP2000 in 2011. Although the song entered at a relatively low position (no. 1454), the song has kept a steady position in the years following: ranging between no. 94 and no. 48.

Positions of Rainbow in the Sky: 1999: -, 2009: -, 2019: no. 386, 2022: no. 366

Positions of Killing in the name: 1999: -, 2009: -, 2019: no. 60, 2022: no. 48

Positions of Rumour Has It: 1999: -, 2009: -, 2019: no. 1377, 2022: no. 1627

Positions of Paranoid Android: 1999: -, 2009: -, 2019: no. 342, 2022: no. 423

Timbre in the Top 2000 {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}

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This plot shows the timbre values from 3 years of the TOP 2000. Only the first 100 songs of the playlists are used for this plot. A few timbre coefficients show differences between the four years. For example c02, c04, c06 and c012. In c06 the year of 2009 stands out, the violin has a much longer shape compared to the other years. The same is true for c12 where 1999 has a longer and different shape than the other years. The violins of 2019 and 2022 are very alike for all of the timbre coefficients. This might be because there are only 3 years in between. It means that the first 100 songs in these playlists “sound” relatively the same.

Loudness, tempo and duration {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}}

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This plot shows the loudness tempo and duration of the first 100 songs in four years in the TOP2000.

Dendrogram TOP2000 {.storyboard, data-commentary-width=400}